Storm recovery continues progress into second year

Sunday

Apr 28, 2013 at 12:01 AM

TUSCALOOSA | It took approximately six minutes for a mile-wide tornado swirling with winds of almost 200 mph to forever change the landscape of this city. Now, two years later, the southwest-to-northeast track is still visible from Kauloosa Avenue to Holt on the outskirts of the city. From the air, the smear on the earth left by the tornado of April 27, 2011, can still be seen stretching to the horizon.

By Jason MortonStaff Writer

TUSCALOOSA | It took approximately six minutes for a mile-wide tornado swirling with winds of almost 200 mph to forever change the landscape of this city.Now, two years later, the southwest-to-northeast track is still visible from Kauloosa Avenue to Holt on the outskirts of the city. From the air, the smear on the earth left by the tornado of April 27, 2011, can still be seen stretching to the horizon.But along this path of despair new life is springing into being.Some businesses that were reduced to broken bricks and twisted metal have returned better than ever and usually to crowds of customers eager for their return.Along the 15th Street and McFarland Boulevard corridor, for example, Full Moon Bar-B-Que, Taco Casa, McDonald’s, Schlotzsky’s deli and Hokkaido Japanese Steakhouse, among others, have fully resumed operations in buildings that would fit neatly inside any multi-million-dollar retail development.The CVS Pharmacy, constructed by local developer Stan Pate, is a brick-and-glass marvel standing sentry over Veterans Memorial Parkway.And the nostalgic look of Krispy Kreme that was lost to the storm has been replaced with a bright new look.But some areas are still waiting for that new beginning.While construction on the $100 million Lofts at City Center on the former site of Wood Square is coming along at a breakneck pace, what was once the Cedar Crest neighborhood directly across from it is still a large, flat field.And while last week’s groundbreaking ceremonies in Alberta on a new $3 million tennis complex in Jaycee Park and the $19.8 million Alberta School of Performing Arts (along with its $11 million theater) brought smiles and the promise of a revitalized community, large swaths of this part of the city are empty.For some, this level of progress after two years of effort is not enough. Others see it as about what should be expected, considering that 12 percent of the city was damaged, destroyed or erased by the forces of nature.And some say the city has exceeded expectations — not just in terms of bricks and mortar, but also in the planning, diligence and forced patience that will ensure what is rebuilt is better than what waslost.“In the past 24 months, with challenges ranging from inadequate infrastructure to an absence of a rental residential market, the city has seen a robust recovery that is poised to grow even greater in the next few years,” said Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox. “The nearly $240 million dollars of reinvestment in the recovery zone pales in comparison to our own transformation as a community.“The tragedy of April 27th forged a new covenant as one people who have been steadfast in no longer being divided by racial, political, religious and geographical boundaries. One of the reasons why we must always remember is we can never forget the unity of spirit that God provided when we were on the precipice.”

City Hall has adopted a new slogan — “Stronger. Safer. Smarter.” — for the focus of its rebuilding and recovery efforts.These terms can be applied to multiple aspects of the city’s revitalization efforts, ranging from the modern zoning guidelines and infrastructure improvements laid out in the Tuscaloosa Forward Generational Master Plan to last week’s implementation of a new emergency alert system that will blast calls, emails or text messages when dangerous weather threatens.“I believe that the implementation of the Tuscaloosa Forward plan and the vast amount of public input that was gathered during this process is a success story which has and continues to be the guide for recovery,” said Robin Edgeworth, director of the city’s Recovery Operations.City officials also have worked to secure a $496,000 grant to install a safe room for up to 300 people at the Tuscaloosa Department of Transportation and adopted new policies to disburse city equipment so that it will be less susceptible to total destruction in the event of another catastrophe.Likewise, DCH Regional Medical Center recently announced that it was ramping up its preparedness efforts in dealing with mass casualty trauma.But the storm also uncovered some ugly secrets.Of the 5,362 houses damaged or destroyed, 71 percent were rental units occupied by residents with household incomes of less than $25,000, according to data published by City Hall.The same data said about one-third of the 356 businesses affected by the storm were operating in decades-old structures that failed to conform to existing and updated city, state and federal codes.Additionally, many of the structures were built before the implementation of federally defined floodways. Federal guidelines make rebuilding in those protected areas almost impossible. Meanwhile, City Hall undertook a series of efforts to address its infrastructure problems. Updated floodway maps were drawn to reflect the improvements brought on by the enhanced storm water drainage network established in recent years.But these efforts also stopped private landowners from immediately doing what they wanted or needed to do in order to rebuild.“Somehow, every effort we made toward our recovery was hit with a roadblock,” said Tommy Metrock, owner of Boulevard Salon, one of the first businesses to reopen on McFarland Boulevard. “The rules seemed to be changing every day. Rumors of floodways and eminent domain swirled from City Hall, and most of our questions were answered with a polite shrug and advice to consider relocating because the current and upcoming building codes and landscaping requirements may be too demanding for our small lot, or maybe we should wait for FEMA to determine what was to become of our property.”Looking back, the city accepts responsibility for failing to adequately keep property owners abreast of the changing rules and the need for updated guidelines.“Our efforts to communicate with individuals impacted by the storm has now proven to have been challenging, because while they were busy with putting their life back in order, they naturally didn’t have time to take notice of communications coming from City Hall,” Edgeworth said.The city has since added two new positions — an economic ombudsman and communications director — to try to prevent such breakdowns in the future.Already, these positions are paying dividends.Regular communications now flow out of City Hall from Deidre Stalnaker, the city’s media relations coordinator, and businesses as well as city officials and council members have praised the efforts of Brendan Moore, who was pulled from the city’s Office of Planning and Development Services to be the line of communication between the city and the business community.“Looking back,” the mayor said, “I would have recommended these positions earlier, given the immense challenge of effectively communicating with our citizens who were rebuilding their homes and businesses, and in many cases living in temporary housing in and outside our metro area.”

While the Tuscaloosa Forward development process slowed the immediate return of homes and businesses, private investment along the economic centers of the storm’s path has taken some significant steps in the past 12 months.But the financial investments outside these corridors have been primarily privately funded, and the effort to restore these areas — Alberta and Rosedale Court, among them — have brought their own lessons.So far, the city has secured almost $65 million in federal grants through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for storm recovery needs. In both rounds of funding — $16.6 million in December 2011 and another $48 million last month — the mayor and city staff have diverted the money toward no-interest loans for housing and business recovery, infrastructure and road improvements, and toward Habitat for Humanity and the Tuscaloosa Housing Authority for low-income housing in Alberta and Rosedale.To the concern of some, these funds can’t be spent outside the city in areas like Holt, where approximately two dozen boarded-up houses, purchased for $4 million by the Alabama Department of Transportation for the path of the proposed Eastern Bypass, look much like they did on the morning of April 28, 2011. The Tuscaloosa County Commission is turning to the state for a cut of the $49.2 million it received from HUD for storm and disaster recovery needs.Portions of the city’s allocation of federal funds have helped businesses like Hoo’s Q and Gilda’s Salon & Day Spa begin construction on 15th Street, and they have aided the Housing Authority in securing tax credits to complete Rosedale’s $18.5 million, 88-unit Phase I and begin construction on the $19.2 million, 86-unit Phase II.As for Habitat, $490,000 in HUD dollars has already been awarded and another $1 million is awaiting approval.

But simply bringing back homes may not be enough to repair the emotional and psychological damage that the tornado left in its wake.“I think we could have gone beyond meeting the basic housing needs and addressed some of the other needs directly associated with the transition,” said Willie “Dino” Fort, assistant executive director of the Housing Authority. “The Rosedale families were interconnected by a social fabric of friends and family who grew to rely on one another, and we made every effort to keep them together whenever possible during the relocation process. Unfortunately, in many cases, we were left with little or no choice based on the limited availability of units.“This had a devastating emotional, psychological and social impact on some of our families, and we obviously feel like we could have done a better job assisting them with the transition.”Some Alberta residents shared a similar sentiment.Dan Maguire is president of Alberta Neighbors Together, a neighborhood group that formed, in his words, as “a reaction to the uncertainty surrounding the city’s plans for recovery.”After watching his neighborhood destroyed, Maguire is still skeptical of what others are touting as strong recovery efforts.“While I appreciated the apparent willingness of City Hall to consider input from as many citizens as possible on its Tuscaloosa Forward plan, I think the state of the affected zones two years later is telling,” Maguire said. “Tuscaloosa has lost businesses to Northport and the county because of all the uncertainty surrounding the plan. While there are certainly good things about the Tuscaloosa Forward plan, that uncertainty has cost us in some ways.“I have to say that I hoped Tuscaloosa would be farther along the road to recovery at this point. As I ride around Tuscaloosa, it still looks too much like a storm just came through.”Others in Alberta, though, believe the city is doing all it can to assist this notoriously depressed area of the city return in ways that hearken back to its glory days of the 1960s and 1970s.“I don’t know that there is an effort that didn’t work,” said Alberta resident Lib Davis. “However, I think there was a feeling by some business owners that the rules didn’t apply to them — that they could do what they wanted to do just because that’s the way they had always done it, like a sense of entitlement.“Things were rough with the business owners, but it wasn’t for lack of trying on the part of the city. I mean, almost two years later some business people were still trying to get around (regulations) just because they felt they should be able to because they were business owners and owned business property which, to their way of thinking, made them more important than the people who were trying to rebuild their homes.”

Councilman Kip Tyner, who represents Alberta as part of District 5, and Council President Harrison Taylor, whose District 2 includes Forest Lake and Rosedale, heard similar stories in the storm’s aftermath.But they’re also proud of the strides that have been made and believe that the lives of their constituents will be better in time for the tornado’s third anniversary.“I think, certainly, we would have liked to have done things quicker,” Tyner said. “But again, with the situation — the city really didn’t have a lot of money to work with, aside from that first allocation of $16.6 million (from HUD). But I really don’t think I’d change much at all, and I think people realize the reason for that now. ...“I love to compare Alberta to the tortoise and the hare, and you know who won that race. That was always kind of my goal. I know (the process) was frustrating to a lot of people ... but we wanted to do it right, and I think we’re seeing that.”Taylor said: “If possible I would have liked to better assist those most impacted by April 27 by providing better financial support for repairs to homes with little or no insurance, providing temporary rent subsidies for those displaced and providing shelter for our homeless. ...“The slogan ‘We Are Coming Back’ is more evident now than at any time since April 27, 2011. After receiving nearly $65 million in grant funds to meet some of our unmet needs, we will now be able to rebuild our city even better than before.”

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